


if you give a reaper a strawberry...

by ellie_cat



Series: LOONA Drabbles [2]
Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: ALMOST Character Death, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Car Accidents, College Student Haseul, F/F, Human!Haseul, Minor Injuries, Reaper!Vivi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:54:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23111302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellie_cat/pseuds/ellie_cat
Summary: Haseul watched Vivi eat until she was about halfway through the bowl of strawberries before she asked, “So what are you?” Vivi paused, a strawberry halfway to her mouth before she laughed, a soft, almost nervous laugh.“That’s a secret,” she mock-whispered, like it was still a big secret, before reaching for her bowl of strawberries. She winked, and then she was gone.It took Haseul a whole ten minutes to realize she took the entire bowl of strawberries with her.
Relationships: Jo Haseul/Viian Wong | ViVi, Mentioned Ha Sooyoung | Yves/Kim Jiwoo | Chuu
Series: LOONA Drabbles [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1681996
Comments: 1
Kudos: 88





	if you give a reaper a strawberry...

**Author's Note:**

> written for loona amino's writing club prompt one!
> 
> heavily inspired by light at the end by fruitily

“What are you doing out here?” Haseul asks the girl standing outside in her apartment’s hallway. She’s never seen her before, and no apartments had been recently open for someone to move in. The girl startles, pink hair swishing pleasantly as she turns, mouth parted in a perfect ‘o’ of surprise. Haseul almost forgets to breathe for a second- this girl is quite possibly the most beautiful girl she’s ever seen- but thankfully kicks herself into not acting like an idiot. 

“You can see me?” Is the first thing out of her mouth. Her voice is soft, and surprisingly deep for someone so fairy-like, in Haseul’s opinion. Haseul tilts her head in confusion, but the girl just chuckles nervously and says, “I apologize. That was a strange thing to say, probably.”

“It’s… fine,” Haseul replies, “so do you know someone that lives through here?” The girl smiles pleasantly and tilts her head in agreement. 

“Something like that,” she says, something like amusement in her tone. “My name is Vivi,” she says, before giving a little playful curtsy, raising the ends of her white dress. 

“Haseul,” Haseul says back, doing her own little curtsy despite her jeans and leather jacket. “It was nice to meet you, Vivi,” Haseul says, to which Vivi smiles, tilting her head again. Haseul turns and starts walking to the elevator. 

“Have a good day,” she hears from behind her right as the elevator doors close, not giving her a chance to respond. Haseul frowns, trying to focus on her day, but her thoughts keep straying back to the girl. Something about her reminded Haseul of a porcelain doll, delicate and haunting, from her pink hair to her dress. 

Even during her classes, Vivi remains in her thoughts, like a song that she can’t seem to forget. Her friends even notice it, after she spaces out one time too many times thinking of pink and white when they meet for lunch. 

“You hanging in there?” Junguen asks, a half-concerned, half-amused smile on her face. 

“Huh?” Haseul asks, before the question finally processes in her brain, “Oh, yeah, just fine. A little stressed, is all.” Jungeun just looked at her for a moment before sighing. 

“If you’re sure,” Jungeun said, as Heejin leaned across the table to grasp at where Haseul’s hands were laying on it. Haseul gave her a grateful smile as the topic changed. She knew it wasn’t forgotten by the way Hyunjin silently handed over a piece of her chocolate croissant. 

When she got home, she did not expect ambulances parked outside of the apartment building. She doubly did not expect them to be surrounding her elderly neighbor’s door after she’d managed to climb up all three flights of stairs because they had the elevator cordoned off (the same door Vivi was standing next to, her mind whispered). 

“Oh no,” she murmured as one of the EMTs noticed her. “Is she okay?” The EMTs expression was enough of an answer. 

“I’m sorry, dear. She seems to have gone peacefully in her sleep, if it’s any consolation,” the EMT responded. Haseul gave her a sad smile. 

“I’m glad for that at least. She was always kind to me,” Haseul said, “We can only hope she’s in a better place.” The EMT nodded, and then Haseul let herself into her apartment, set her stuff down, and burrowed under her covers as she started to cry. 

Eventually, she worked her way out of her mound of blankets and stumbled blindly in the lowlight to her kitchen, where she flicked the light on, startled to see someone- no, Vivi, dressed in street clothes- at her kitchen table. Vivi smiled softly upon seeing her. 

“Oh, hello, I was wondering when you would come out,” she said, voice quiet despite how it shattered the silence. 

“How and why are you in my kitchen?” Haseul asked, still in a defensive position, still not quite believing what she was seeing. 

“I’m here because you saw me this morning,” Vivi responded, perfectly calm despite what she was saying, “and as for how, I teleported here.”

“Alright, you’re clearly crazy,” Haseul murmured, faintly wondering if, instead of getting up, she’d actually fallen asleep and this whole thing was a dream. A very, very weird and realistic dream. She didn’t usually have those. She blinked, and suddenly Vivi was gone. 

“Not crazy,” Vivi said, from right behind her. Haseul jumped, a yelp rising out of her as she turned and found Vivi there, smiling sheepishly. “You just don’t believe me yet.”

“How did you get there?” Haseul asked, and Vivi huffed. 

“I told you, I teleported,” Vivi said, cheeks puffed out in a pout. “I’ll do it again!” 

“Please, do not. Just… give me a moment to process,” Haseul said, before walking on shaky legs to one of her kitchen chairs to slump down into as she thought. 

“Of course,” Vivi hummed, and promptly started wandering around her kitchen, opening cabinets and rifling through them before closing them and eventually rooting through the refrigerator. Vivi made an appreciative noise as her movements stopped and she looked over her shoulder at Haseul, a hopeful smile on her face.

“You have strawberries? Can I have some?” Vivi asked, and Haseul just stared at her. Vivi stared back, unmoving. Then, she started batting her eyelashes. 

“Sure,” Haseul finally huffed, tipping her head back to look at the ceiling. Haseul watched as she took them out, found a cutting board and a knife, and started washing them off. As she worked, Vivi started humming some pop song, it sounded like, if how familiar it felt to Haseul was anything to go off of. When she had her strawberries, she carefully washed the cutting board and knife off before setting them in Haseul’s drying rack, and sat very carefully in the chair opposite of Haseul, bowl of strawberries before her, which she promptly scooted closer to being in the middle of them. 

“Strawberry?” Vivi asked, clearly amused. Haseul stared at her. Vivi stared back. Haseul carefully picked one out of the bowl and ate it, still just watching Vivi, who smiled back, satisfied. 

Haseul watched Vivi eat until she was about halfway through the bowl of strawberries before she asked, “So what are you?” Vivi paused, a strawberry halfway to her mouth before she laughed, a soft, almost nervous laugh. 

“That’s a secret,” she mock-whispered, like it was still a big secret, before reaching for her bowl of strawberries. She winked, and then she was gone. 

It took Haseul a whole ten minutes to realize she took the entire bowl of strawberries with her. 

The next morning, after giving into her own exhaustion and finally sleeping, Haseul wakes up to her phone alarm and the smell of food in the air. This is and of itself is not unusual, but it usually only happens when one of her friends (or more than one) stayed over for the night. This was not the case last night, and thinking about last night makes Haseul remember Vivi. 

Haseul shoots out of bed, barely pausing to gather her phone so it will stop it’s hellish beeping, and sweeps into her living room, pausing when she sees pink hair swishing in time with carefree humming to yet another familiar tune. Today, Vivi is wearing a t-shirt under some light wash jean overalls. Haseul has yet to pin down her sense of style. 

“Why are you in my kitchen again?” Haseul sighs, coming closer to take a seat at the table. 

“I came to return your bowl!” Vivi says, her humming stopping as she turns to look at Haseul. “And to cook you something as thanks for the strawberries.”

“What are you making?” Haseul asks, eyeing the stove. Vivi laughs at Haseul’s weary expression. 

“French toast,” Vivi says, motioning to a plate of already made french toast. “I hope you like it!”

“I’m a college student, I’ll eat anything,” Haseul assured her, before letting her head fall to the table, using her arms as pillows. Her eyes slipped closed as Vivi went back to humming and finishing them up. 

“They’re done,” she chirps a few minutes later, setting a plate of perfectly cooked french toast down in front of Haseul once she straightened back up in her chair. “How do you usually take your french toast?”

Haseul looked at her for a second before smiling and propping her chin up on her hand. “With strawberries.” Vivi blinked, before smiling back. 

“Tough luck, those disappeared for some reason, I wouldn’t know why. Syrup or honey?” Vivi prompted, and Haseul gave a long, drawn out sigh like it was incredibly burdensome to her, this case of disappeared strawberries. 

“Honey,” Haseul responded, finally, and Vivi smiled, setting the honey down in front of her. 

“Have a good day at school, dear,” Vivi said, winking, and then she was gone. 

If not for all the evidence that Vivi really had been here, Haseul could believe she hadn’t just been with her. 

After that, Vivi pops into her apartment randomly, for vastly different reasons and at vastly different times. Once, it’s to watch TV because the TV at her apartment is in need of repairs because, and she quotes, “My roommate threw her controller at it.”

“What was she playing?” Haseul had asked at the time, watching Vivi more than she was the TV from her side of the couch. 

“Overwatch,” Vivi said, distracted. Haseul hummed. At least it made a little more sense now. Yeojin often grew frustrated with the same game. She wondered what Vivi’s roommate was like.

Another time, Vivi pops in while she’s cooking and asks if she can borrow her leather jacket.”

“And why should I let you?” Haseul asked, narrowing her eyes at her. “I’ll never know when I’ll get it back.” Vivi gave her a sheepish smile. 

“I promise to have it back by the time you wake up tomorrow?” Vivi had said, more of a question in the tone than being any sort of concrete promise. Haseul had just sighed and gone back to stirring her dinner. 

“Oh my god, fine, but it better be back when I wake up tomorrow,” Haseul said, and Vivi squealed happily. 

“Thank you, Haseulie~,” Vivi chirped, before all but running back to her bedroom from the sounds of it. 

Yet another time Vivi pops out of nowhere while she’s getting ready for bed and asks, like it’s a perfectly normal thing, “Can I use your shower? My roommate broke the handles on ours.” Haseul eyes the shower bag and towel she has on her arm. 

“I guess? How did she break your shower handles?” Haseul asked, and Vivi laughed. 

“She’s strong and she has anger issues. She’s cute though, I promise!” Vivi said before skipping out into the hallway and into the bathroom. 

Haseul was beginning to think Vivi roomed with a criminal. 

She’s kind of right, she finds later that week, when she lets herself into her apartment only to jump when she catches sight of the dark haired girl looking right at her from the couch. Breaking and entering is a crime. Except there’s no sign of the breaking part. The girl is just there. 

“Haseul?” The girl asks. Haseul slowly nods, having not yet closed the door because oh my god this girl knows my name is she here to kill me? “Oh my god, close the door. I won’t hurt you.”

“How do I know that?” Haseul shoots back, and the girl laughs. Actually honest to god laughs. 

“Alright, I like you. I see what Vivi-unnie sees in you,” the girl says, and okay, Haseul tries to ignore how she’d relaxed at the mention of Vivi’s name, but finds she has. 

“And who would you be?” Haseul asks, finally closing the door. She doesn’t lock it though. 

“Her roommate. Olivia Hye,” Olivia says, and Haseul suddenly laughs as images of this girl throwing a controller at a TV because she got frustrated and her accidentally breaking shower handles pops into her head. “She told you about the shower handles didn’t she?” The girl asks, grimacing. 

“Um, yeah,” Haseul answers. “I didn’t mean to laugh.”

“It’s okay,” Olivia says, waving her off, “looking back it is funny, but not so much when it was happening.”

“I can understand that,” Haseul says, finally stepping further into her apartment to set all of her stuff down. “Are you like Vivi, then?”

“Yes,” Olivia Hye replies, no hesitance whatsoever, “has she not told you what we are?”

“No,” Haseul sighs, “not for lack of my trying. All I know is that it has something to do with death, maybe, and that you guys can teleport.”

“Not all of us, just the old ones like Vivi-unnie,” Olivia snickered. Haseul paused. 

“Then how did you get in here?” Haseul asked. Olivia smiled nervously. 

“I may or may not know how to pick locks… really well,” Olivia explained, looking away. 

“Good to know,” Haseul said, an amused smile tugging at her lips. “So what brings you here?”

“I wanted to see the human Vivi-unnie’s been so fascinated with lately,” Olivia says like it’s simple. “She’s breaking a lot of rules by continuing to see you, but she keeps doing it anyway because she likes you so much. I didn’t understand it, but I guess I can see why now.”

“There are rules?” Haseul asks, suddenly feeling very bad even though she’s never asked for Vivi to come around. She feels bad because she doesn’t want Vivi to stop now, but if there’s rules, rules that she’s breaking and ignoring to see Haseul, Haseul would rather she stopped showing up. 

“She really didn’t tell you anything about reapers did she?” Olivia asks, giving her a funny look. 

“Reapers?” Haseul whispers, and Olivia just continues looking at her before sighing and standing and heading for the door. 

“It was good meeting you, Haseul,” Olivia says, and promptly walks out, shutting the door with a barely audible click behind her. 

Vivi doesn’t come visit her that day. A day turns into two, into three, into a week, and then suddenly, it’s been a month. She hates to admit to herself because she knows it’s better this way, but she misses Vivi. And her bowl. She’s counted them and she’s still missing the damn thing. 

She knows she can just go and buy another one at any time- there’s no shortage of cheap bowls- but she’s holding on to this tiny hope in her that Vivi will give it back to her. 

It’s a few days after she moped about her apartment last and counter the bowls, and she’s out and about doing adult things like errands. She’s on the walk back to her apartment, bags of groceries on both arms, and looking at the groupchat with her friends on her phone, contemplating if she should join them when they go out tonight when she reaches a crosswalk. She’s walked this route so many times that she just glances up at the light to see if she can walk. She smiles, glad to see it’s on the light where she can walk because the bags are starting to weigh on her. 

She doesn’t see the car going through the red light, doesn’t hear the squealing of tires as they try to stop, not really, but she does see a flurry of white and pink sprinting towards her. 

When she’s next aware of her surroundings, she knows she’s been hit. She can’t feel it, not quite yet, but she just knows, and knows somewhere inside of her, that she’s going to die. 

But all she can see is Vivi, looking down at her through teary eyes and smiling and cooing and telling her she’ll be alright. 

“I won’t let you die,” Vivi sniffles, holding her ever so gently. 

“That’s not how it works, silly. You should know that better than anyone,” Haseul manages, and Vivi laughs, but it’s not the same as all the other times she’s laughed. It’s broken, hollow. 

“I never should have let you and Olivia meet,” Vivi murmurs, before taking a stabilizing breath. “I’m death, honey,” Vivi reminds her, through the surprised laughter that bubbles up in her and her tears, “I decide how it works.”

And then, she wakes up. At the end of her hospital bed is a girl she’s never seen before, dressed in a white and black dress. She has muted blond hair that frame her face perfectly. She almost looks like a doll, but Hasueul knows what she is. 

“Reaper,” she says, coughing. The girl winces. 

“I hate being called that. Hey, lay back down. You’ll hurt yourself,” the girl chastises, clicking her tongue. Her voice is just as soft as Haseul thought it would be. 

“But aren’t you here to collect me?”

“Oh my god, no, I’m here to watch you while Vivi-unnie gets coffee so she can stay awake to watch over your dumbass. Of all the deaths to try to have, you walk into a crossroads,” she huffs. 

“So I’m not going to die?” Haseul asked, mind still chugging through the painkillers to try to decipher what’s going on. 

“No, sweetie, you’re not. Our boss owed a favor to Vivi-unnie anyway,” the girl replied. “I’m GoWon, by the way.”

“Boss?” Haseul asked, and GoWon huffed again. 

“Death? That ring a bell? She prefers to go by Yves, though,” GoWon explained. “Before you ask, Vivi-unnie saved Yves-unnie’s wife.”

“Death has a wife?” Haseul asks. GoWon nods, smiling. “Oh my God, Death is a lesbian. I knew it.”

“Alright, that’s enough conversation for now. The painkillers are still making you high, apparently,” GoWon said, and helped her lay back down. “Now go to sleep. Vivi-unnie will be here when you wake up.”

And she was.

**Author's Note:**

> things that didn't make it in :  
> \- hyewon is very much a thing  
> \- hyejoo is very new to being a reaper and doesn't know how strong she is, hence the broken shower handles  
> \- vivi is mentoring her while she learns to be a reaper  
> \- vivi is very old, one of the first reapers yves created  
> \- yves is death, chuu is her wife, they're very cute  
> \- yeojin is haseul's little step-sister in this!  
> \- vivi was near haseul when the accident happened because she was actually walking like a real person for once to haseul's apartment to return the bowl that started it all  
> \- viseul live happily ever after and so does everyone else


End file.
